Read Online Equal Access by A. E. Branson - Free Book Online Page B

he
was born, what vehicles he owned and even some banking information.
Shad also confirmed this was Wally’s first marriage.
    Most frustrating, but unsurprising, was the
fact Wally’s record was clean.
    Shad leaned back in his chair and stared at
the screen of latest information on the laptop. Wally had been a
rather young man when he had access to Shad, perhaps barely in his
twenties. He’d probably starting molesting boys back in his teens.
The best case scenario was that Wally managed to find a woman with
a four-year-old son whom he would live with until the son was
seven, then Wally would move on to a new hunting ground. That could
possibly reduce the number of Wally’s victims to around twelve to
fifteen.
    The numbers were of no comfort to Shad. He
was convinced Wally was a molester because first he was a pedophile
– someone who was physically attracted to children, usually of a
specific age and gender. And Shad had no guarantee that even while
he was such an easy target for Wally the man didn’t turn his
affection toward a few boys on the side. Odds were Wally had
molested more than fifteen boys. At least Shad was also convinced
that Wally wasn’t simply an opportunist who took advantage of any
child just because he or she became accessible to him. Those types
of molesters usually turned out to be the really dangerous ones
because their motivation wasn’t based on attraction. They committed
the act because those children were simply there and convenient to
victimize.
    He wasn’t going to think about Brody.
    The one thing the different types had in
common was their ability to continue their lives in relative peace
and security while upsetting the lives of victims. They were able
to keep the children silent by abuse of power. The control might be
as blatant as threatening to hurt or kill the child or a family
member or a pet if the victim told anyone. It might be as subtle as
Wally’s technique of convincing the child this was normal behavior,
and also by keeping the boy’s trust with attention and gifts.
Children were commonly told that nobody would believe them if they
said anything, and unfortunately this could easily be the case if
the molester were a friend or part of the family ... and many of
them were.
    There was, however, another possibility for
Shad to consider.
    Often when these predators were caught they
were sent into counseling. Statistically the counseling didn’t seem
to help much because the majority of perpetrators would commit the
same offense again. Occasionally counseling did seem to help when
certain individuals voluntarily entered therapy even though they
weren’t caught. But those people genuinely wanted to stop that
activity. Regardless, as far as pedophilia went, nobody knew what
caused it and therefore nobody had figured out how to eradicate
it.
    There was no such thing as coincidence. Shad
figured there had to be a reason he discovered Wally now, only
weeks after he could no longer press criminal charges. Maybe Wally
had changed his ways ... but if that were the case, why did Shad
have to stumble upon that article at all? Was this some kind of
trial to determine if Shad was becoming the kind of lawyer his
parents should have been able to get seventeen years ago? Was he
being challenged to think outside the boundaries of the law in
order to secure justice?
    Wasn’t he getting enough of that already with
Charissa’s case?
    Because Shad wound up adopted into a branch
of faith that proclaimed God was still an active participant in
humanity’s affairs, and it was the responsibility of humanity to
respond to His calling, Shad became a lawyer. As much as that
sounded like an oxymoronic statement, it was still the result of
Shad’s first discernment that he was actually receiving divine
inspiration. Although the Society of Friends affirmed that everyone
had equal access to God, Shad often doubted he shared that much
potential. Certainly he had benefited from the inspiration received
by